At 193 years, this journey was long, even for one used to the arduous journeys of the Underground Railway. This week, Harriet Tubman — a criminal in her own time — was welcomed by Maryland’s first family into their home.
She comes in bronze, as the first bust of an African American to be displayed in Government House.
“In commemorating the life of Harriet Tubman, we’re ensuring that the healing light of those who shine...

D+. That, alas, is the state of our Bay, unchanged since 2012, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s just-released State of the Bay Report.
Foundation scientists consider historical and current information for 13 indicators in three categories: pollution, habitat and fisheries. Each indicator is scored between one and 100.
Four indicators — dissolved oxygen, water clarity, oysters and underwater grasses — improved.
...

I took Bay Weekly at its word.
“The best way to start learning about birds is to put up a feeder,” advised international birder Colin Rees, conveyed in Dotty Doherty’s Dec. 4 story Winter Is for the Birds. Today I’m reaping the rewards of refilling and hanging my feeders to celebrate Christmas for the birds.
Snow has me and the birds home together. While I work at my livelihood via MacBook Air, they’re...

The new fishing year is blossoming before us. Since the passing of the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year) on Dec. 21, 2014, our daily dose of sunshine has grown. January 8 gives us eight hours and 11 minutes, a trend in the right direction. We might not notice the accumulation of extra sunlight every day, but the fish do. It is one of the prime drivers of their urge to spawn.
Crappie (properly pronounced with a broad a) are generally the first fish in the...

While winter has only just begun, it’s heartening to know that a little more sunshine is creeping into our lives day by day. Since a month ago, we’ve gained 15 minutes of light at day’s end, with sunset now after 5pm. Monday marked the latest sunrise of the year, at 7:25, and although it’s a slow go at first, that time will inch earlier hereafter. Heck, before you know it will be summer.
The winter moon wanes through morning skies, reaching last...

Can you enjoy a mystery when the mystery makes no sense? It turns out you can

Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix: Her) fancies himself the Phillip Marlowe of the Free Love generation. With long hair, lots of drugs and a general distrust of the establishment, Doc runs a small private detective agency — when he’s not bumming around on the beach, high as a kite.
When Doc’s ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston: Boardwalk Empire) shows up asking for a favor, Doc knows it’s bad news. Shasta’s latest flame...

16 Chesapeake neighbors answer one tough question: What do you see in your future in 2015?

New years make optimists of us. Once again, we believe that determination or luck will win out, making us healthy, wealthy and wise in the unmapped year ahead. If past years have brought disappointments and damage, well, let old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind. Let the good times roll!
For all our faith and frenzy, every new year is full of surprises likely to steamroll our puny human plans.
So it was a tough question we posed to a...

Time has been short as the old year withered and died. Now 2015 stretches before us in vast, unbroken possibility.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
when a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortex when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise …
I look at the new year with...

True names rise from a creature’s character. That’s the Native American way. Cats, too, have true names, but theirs are inscrutable to humans, according to poet T.S. Eliot in the poems that became Cats of musical fame.
Octopi are as curious as cats, certainly as inscrutable and maybe as intelligent. These creatures of the deep can change both the color and the texture of their bodies to disappear into their environment. They use their eight tentacles to explore,...